Tick Marks on Chart Axes in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac

Learn about the Tick Marks, both Major and Minor on chart axes in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac.

Author:Geetesh Bajaj

Product/Version: PowerPoint 2011 for Mac

OS: Mac OS X

Date Created: January 21, 2013Last Updated: January 21, 2013

Charts are a visual representation of data, and when seen on a PowerPoint slide from afar, you make out the value of a series by exploring where
exactly it's placed vis-à-vis the axis. Of course, if your chart has
data labels, then this is less of an issue -- however, typical
charts such as the one shown in Figure 1, below have no data labels. For such a chart, you'll notice that the column representing
Grapes in 2009 is a little taller than the value 4 in the adjacent axis. It's also just a little
higher than 4 here -- indicating a rough value of around 4.25. We're still not sure -- and the Tick Marks placed on the axis will help
us get a better idea.

Figure 1: Major and Minor Tick marks on chart axes

A few tick marks have been highlighted in red and blue within Figure 1
above -- we chose two colors to highlight these tick marks because most chart types show two types of tick marks on axes -- Major
(highlighted in red) and Minor (highlighted in blue).

Major tick marks are indications on an axis that show up:

Between the categories on the Horizontal axis, and,

Besides Major Unit values on the Vertical axis

Both are shown in Figure 1, above (highlighted in red).

Minor tick marks are those tick marks that appear between the Major tick marks on an axis -- typically PowerPoint charts do not display Minor tick
marks, but we enabled them in the chart shown in Figure 1 (highlighted in blue). Minor tick marks help
users measure the distance between the Major tick marks.

If you look at this picture of a ruler (picture sourced from Office.com
), you'll recollect that both Major and Minor tick marks have been available in all types of rulers we have used -- even the rulers used in primary
school.

In this tutorial we will learn how to show/hide these tick marks and also where you display these Major and Minor tick marks:

Open your presentation and insert a chart on your
slide. Just accept defaults, as we did for the basic Column chart shown in Figure 2. The default position of Tick
marks depends upon the chart type you are working with -- also notice that Minor tick marks are hidden by default for a Column chart.

Figure 2: Default position of Tick marks in a Column chart

Click and select the chart axis for which you want to change the
Tick marks -- thereafter right-click (Ctrl+click) to bring up a context menu as shown in Figure 3. From this context
menu choose the Format Axis option (refer to Figure 3 again).

Figure 3: Format Axis option selected for the Value Axis

Note: Can't see the Horizontal gridlines in Figure 3? We have disabled them so that the Tick marks in various
positions are clearly visible in our screenshots.

This summons the Format Axis dialog box -- make sure that the Ticks option is selected within the sidebar as
shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4: Ticks option selected within the Format Axis dialog box

As you can see in Figure 4 above, there are four types of Major and Minor tick marks. These four types work similarly for both the
Major and Minor tick marks, and indicate the position of your tick marks vis-à-vis the axis. Let's explore these options, as marked in
Figure 4 -- and illustrated in Figures 5, 6, 7, and 8:

A. None

As the name suggests, this option hides Tick marks.

B. Outside

Places Tick marks outside of the plot area.

C. Inside

Places Tick marks inside the plot area.

D Cross

Places Tick marks on the axis overlapping the axis, crossing it.

Figure 5 shows all types of the Major tick marks on Value Axis when we selected the
None, Outside, Inside, and Cross options.

Figure 5: Types of Major Tick marks on Value axis from left to right (None, Outside, Inside, and Cross)

Figure 6 shows the types of the Minor tick marks on Value Axis when we selected
None, Outside, Inside, and Cross options.

Figure 6: Types of Minor Tick marks on Value axis from left to right (None, Outside, Inside, and Cross)

Figure 7 shows the types of the Major tick marks on Category Axis when we selected
None, Outside, Inside, and Cross options.

Figure 7: Types of Major Tick marks on Category axis from top to bottom (None, Outside, Inside, and Cross)

Figure 8 shows the types of the Minor tick marks on Category Axis when we selected
None, Outside, Inside, and Cross options.

Figure 8: Types of Minor Tick marks on Category axis from top to bottom (None, Outside, Inside, and Cross)

Save your presentation often.

Note: The Minor tick marks and the Major tick marks overlap each other at the position of Major tick marks -- this is so familiar to
all of you because that's how the everyday common geometrical ruler works. So, if you hide major tick marks but still show minor tick marks, the
minor tick marks appear at the regular major tick-mark positions too -- but of course, these are not as pronounced.

Pictures in Presentations

Is a picture is worth a thousand words? You probably have heard this adage so often that we decided not to repeat this phrase throughout this book!
Now here’s some more info: the human brain uses a larger part of its area to store visual information rather than textual content. And that’s possibly
because a picture describes so much more than text.